China bans Chinese Food for Googleplex

This is a direct result of Google ‘s stand on principles (see below). No Google for China means no Chinese food for Googlers. But seriously.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html

In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident–albeit a significant one–was something quite different.

First, this attack was not just on Google. As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses–including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors–have been similarly targeted. We are currently in the process of notifying those companies, and we are also working with the relevant U.S. authorities.

Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.

Third, as part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users’ computers.

Algorithms and Ads: No Free Lunches and Hill Climbing

From http://www.no-free-lunch.org/

More formally, where
d = training set;
m = number of elements in training set;
f = ‘target’ input-output relationships;
h = hypothesis (the algorithm’s guess for f made in response to d); and
C = off-training-set ‘loss’ associated with f and h (‘generalization error’)
all algorithms are equivalent, on average, by any of the following measures of risk: E(C|d), E(C|m), E(C|f,d), or E(C|f,m).

How well you do is determined by how ‘aligned’ your learning algorithm P(h|d) is with the actual posterior, P(f|d).

Wolpert’s result, in essence, formalizes Hume, extends him and calls the whole of science into question.

Bing Ad

Make Bing your decision engine

Google Ad

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From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_climbing

hill climbing is a mathematical optimization technique which belongs to the family of local search. It is relatively simple to implement, making it a popular first choice. Although more advanced algorithms may give better results, in some situations hill climbing works just as well.

Hill climbing can be used to solve problems that have many solutions, some of which are better than others. It starts with a random (potentially poor) solution, and iteratively makes small changes to the solution, each time improving it a little. When the algorithm cannot see any improvement anymore, it terminates. Ideally, at that point the current solution is close to optimal, but it is not guaranteed that hill climbing will ever come close to the optimal solution.

For example, hill climbing can be applied to the traveling salesman problem. It is easy to find a solution that visits all the cities but will be very poor compared to the optimal solution. The algorithm starts with such a solution and makes small improvements to it, such as switching the order in which two cities are visited. Eventually, a much better route is obtained.

Hill climbing is used widely in artificial intelligence, for reaching a goal state from a starting node. Choice of next node and starting node can be varied to give a list of related algorithms.

Bing Ad for Hill Climbing-

Climbing at Amazon

Buy books at Amazon.com and save. Qualified orders over $25 ship free

Amazon.com/books

Google Ad for Hill Climbing Algorithm

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A year after Google’s Kill Bill OS announcements and Ballmer’s lets buy our way outta here- there seem still more sense to stick to Google ‘s ad algols. Unless you want to climb Microsoft’s online hills only to find there is no free lunch in their ad rates and offers.

Like the free and virus prone browser.

Google and Me on Privacy and Openness

Finally, I have to admit it, Google Rocks. Check the video above on the website if it does not show in your inbox.

The Google Privacy Centre is much needed.

ps I resigned yesterday from the Technology Advsiory Board of University of Tennessee protesting the inferior solution to giv away everything to Microsoft on a platter without even evaluating Google Wave for the Volunteers., or even having an Open Source Lab for two computers even when I asked for it months ago.

Lastly I apologize for the sometimes spelling and grammar mistakes in my blog to the readers- I found out that I may be suffering from a mild learning disorder ( a bit like dylexia – adrenal glan tests are still awaited). It  which was untreated for almost 32 years as I was in relatively bad health care for most of my life..

The Google Privacy Centre is at http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacy.html

Episode 2: The Chrome Wars

Google now shows me an error of GMAIL with Google CHROME.

In the meantime there are a big bunch of extensions and themes in a SUR PRISE announcement.

As my friend Ashlee of NYT said it best, Google is trying to out APPLE APPLE, before APPLE APPLES.


Google gets confused

Google is willing to sell me 529$ of Phone.

But it says it wont sell me 30 $ of advertising because it does not deal with INR

Maybe I should talk to the Indian professors of Googlers, grr.

Web Meets Phone: The Google Phone

A Thing of Beauty

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases;

it will never. Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

John Keats

YouTube Features: Audio Swap, Mobile posts and Themes

Here are great features from the now formidable and always delightful Youtube, especially the Audio Swap feature.

[tweetmeme=”Decisionstats”]

YOU TUBE*

(*BECAUSE GOOGLE IS NOT A  MONOPOLY )

Basically it allows you to use a background song over your home videos.

If you have ever shot a baby video, or a pet video, or just a random nature is beautiful video- here is an example

The Heavy Rock ( California) vs The Country Song ( Tennessee) versions.

versus

They were both sent from my Iphone, and the audio added later. The Audio swap function is at-

My Videos >

http://www.youtube.com/my_videos#

Click on the Audio Swap Button below each video.

You can see the screenshot below for the functionality offered by Audio Swap.

The YouTube feature also has considerable refinements ( after 5 yrs of hard thinking by the most famous Standford alumni to drop out). An example is customizable skins and themes- see here a screenshot ( note the background color, font etc)-

You can also see it here at http://youtube.com/Decisionstats or just click the screenshot below.

Speaking of Stanford- I called up home in India to tell them how I am doing in San Fran. There was considerable confusion after I told them that I got admitted to Stanford. My father said- ” Just how did you get admitted to Stanford? ” Me- I just took the Caltrain to the station- I meant admitted to the campus not the college 😉